East Coast Broadband Fastest In USA 363
Death Metal Maniac writes "The study, which was conducted by affordable-broadband advocacy group Speed Matters, found that the nine states with the fastest median download connections are all located on the East Coast. Rhode Island (6.8Mbps) and Delaware (6.7Mbps) have the fastest, and nearly triple the national median download speed of 2.3Mbps. Rounding out the Top 5 states are New Jersey (5.8Mbps), Virginia (5Mbps) and Massachusetts (4.6Mbps)."
geh (Score:5, Interesting)
That's nice.
Meanwhile, as of last week, we STILL cannot buy FIOS in Philadelphia. No matter how much I want to give Verizon my money, they just won't take it.
Rest of the world (Score:3, Interesting)
Does anyone have comparable statistics for Europe and the relevant parts of Asia?
Re:geh (Score:0, Interesting)
check this out: (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:flawed test (Score:3, Interesting)
My comcast connection just did 15.5 Mbit/s on the speedmatters test but it's just the result of comcast's traffic shaping policy. For a sustained transfer, the speed would be half that.
We have 50 Mbps fiber in Utah (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm curious if anyone beats the Cincinnati Area (Score:3, Interesting)
So far it seems that the fastest AND most affordable internet (combo) here in the states is available in the Cincinnati area (that I've personally seen). It's got 3 major cities within about 1.5 hours, one of the busiest airports in the mid-west (I'm still EST time zone), a few major train rails and highways 70,71 and 75 all very near by. This makes it a prime location for major companies, except that there aren't THAT many (proctor and gamble is here for example).
I mention this because there aren't too many nerdy types like me out here.. except that they set up the broadband out here to handle major *potential* commercial needs.
So here I sit paying $50 a month for "20 meg download" (which is literally about 2.4-2.5 megabytes per second at maxed connection). That's the upgraded package. Normally it's $40 for "10 meg download"... but 10$ more for double the connection? Easy choice for me! What is interesting is that my speeds actually can hit that through usenet / bittorrents.
Just curious, do these speeds at that low of a price exist anywhere else out there for that cheap? I've not yet heard of that elsewhere. I use Insight Broadband [insightbb.com]. Note: Internet speeds are great, but the commercials and customer service / "pay-by-internet" really really suck.
population density and total land area (Score:3, Interesting)
Three of the top five are among the smallest states in the Union by total land area. They are mostly densely populated, too.
Virginia has the extra bonus that it has suburbs of Washington, D.C. and several government installations. The Pentagon is actually not in D.C. (although its postal address says it is), but is in Arlington. The FBI and CIA are headquartered in the state. One of the largest USMC bases is there, along with the DEA and FBI training centers. There's a Federal Reserve Bank. Qimonda has a DRAM fab there, and Genworth Financial is headquartered in the state. Of course it has all kinds of telecom infrastructure.
Re:geh (Score:5, Interesting)
So I called them up and asked how to get started. They did some checking on things, and told me it wasn't available in my area. I was confused. Did they not have my address when they sent me the flyer?
Yeah. Frustrating. I've been having fliers delivered to my doorstep for *years* now, and yet they're not even remotely in my area. It's not just a situation where the neighbors down the street can get FiOS, but I'm just barely on the other side of the line-- no. You can't get FiOS in my zip code. You can't even get it in my neighboring zipcodes.
hmmm (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Rest of the world (Score:3, Interesting)
6MB here (Alberta, CA) for what you are paying, 10MB would be about $80 a month, but that doesnt mean anything as im in a fairly populous city, in Edmonton and Calgary you can get 25MB lines...however basically within walking distance (15KM) they barely have dial-up (28.8), as a random estimate I would probably say that the average speed for Alberta as a whole would be about 1MB... BC, which has integrated DSL more so, is probably averaging 3MB... with highs (excluding business lines 100MBit+) up to 25MB and lows of 28.8/36.6/56 dial-up...
GREED! (Score:2, Interesting)
Want to know why we have slow broadband? GREED! Telco's have figured out we will all open our wallets at a certain speed and are trying to milk us for every penny without upgrading their infrastructure. Why don't you have 100mb fibre at your house? Because the Telco's want to spend that $60+ per month on ferrying around their CEO in a chartered jet rather than to provide the service your paying for. Its rather comical that the Cable companies and telco's are screaming about bandwidth when we have the most developed backbone network in the world. All of those high speed foreign connections are running into a smaller backbone than we have here in the USA yet the providers scaremonger that with HDTV the internet is going to melt down. Perhaps their profit centers might but the current backbone is more than capable.
I work at a large backbone internet provider and we have a vast untapped amount of dark fibre. Most of the bandwidth issues that you hear about from ISP's are artificially created. It's not because the bandwidth is not available its because the higher ups want to pressure their network engineers to squeeze every penny out of that connection.
Its about time people stood up and called shenanagans on the lies that ISP's spreading on the technical difficulties of dialing up better speeds. The only thing stopping them from providing you the speeds you pay for is GREED!
Re:Only 6.8Mbps? (Score:3, Interesting)
What competition (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:geh (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, I am exiled in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and I have 8 mbps down/768 kbps up cable Internet. And it is readily available around here.
So, I don't see a problem, besides greed, for US ISPs to deploy faster broadband networks. If the Brazilians did that here in Brazil, baby-Bells should be able to do the same back in the USA...
Re:geh (Score:2, Interesting)
That's nice.
Meanwhile, as of last week, we STILL cannot buy FIOS in Philadelphia. No matter how much I want to give Verizon my money, they just won't take it.
Where I live, I have only 1 option for internet. It is microwave broadcast. It is (supposedly) a 7Mb connect,the only thing is that after 1 gig of download they throttle you, then after 2 gig they throttle you again. I tried downloading a distro of Linux and it took me 7 days.
Re:geh (Score:4, Interesting)
I mean, FIOS is fast and all from what the numbers say, but I don't look forward to being a Verizon customer.
Yes, it's painful to navigate their phone tree to get anything done. I wanted to increase the speed (i.e., pay them more money), and it took nearly two days of tranfers to get to the right person to talk to.
On the other hand, it took less than 3 days to get that higher speed enabled, and I have had so few problems with the service itself (almost no downtime, no speed limits, etc.) that it's worth the occasional hassle.
One other thing I like about Verizon FIOS is that the price they quote is what you pay. I'm on a $139.99/month plan (15/15 with 5 static IPs) and that is exactly what my bill is each month. No tax, no franchise fee, no "network access fee", etc. Of course, the cell phone side of Verizon can't do their bills like this because "it's a goverment-imposed rule" (not).
Re:geh (Score:5, Interesting)
While Slashdotters are often more interested in FiOS internet service, it's cable television services which call the shots. To offer cable in a locality, Verizon must first obtain a license from the city or town.
This is only for TV service. I had FIOS internet for nearly two years before my county approved Verizon as a cable TV provider.
Re:geh (Score:2, Interesting)
On the order of $4k per customer.
Not Fast. (Score:2, Interesting)
Here in rural (think Amish) PA we have 15 megabits from the local cable provider. Not sure how long it will last though as Comcast is trying to push into the area and take over.
Try Earthlink/Covad (Score:2, Interesting)
From New York City, inside the "speed zone"
I was paying $50 for 3Mb DSL, which only negotiated at 1.7Mb on my router. The only other mainstream alternative was TimeWarner, who doesn't sell naked cable (i.e. you need their "extended basic" service for $45 before you can get Internet service), so I thought I was screwed.
However I was able to get Earthlink 8Mb for $75 with unlimited long distance and various other stuff.
I was worried the low speed negotiation that hampered Verizon would continue when I switched to Earthlink, but I get 750Kb downloads consistently, so that wasn't the case.
I have Earthlink's DNS crap and the slight double click on the phone when I first pick up, but other than that, the service has been stellar.
The difference for me was the response on some sites like Youtube and the ability to stream radio stations without interruption.
Let's face it broadband in the US is going to be intermittently crappy for our lifetime. It's in the hands of companies who don't give a hoot about anything but their own short term goals.
Any solution wherever you are will only temporarily solve the problem.
where'd they get this? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:so far behind (Score:2, Interesting)
That's unfair.
New York City is a ROTTEN example.
I once worked in a dot com in a VERY old building. We had DSL, and SHOULD have gotten a very fast connection (this was for our servers AND employees, mind you) but it would randomly slow down to a halt. It was eventually discovered that the wiring within our offices was brand new, and the wiring to the building itself was brand new, BUT...
The wiring within the building was eighty years old and absolutely worthless! It shorted out all the time! It had to be ripped and replaced!
Now, we couldn't just do that because the landlord didn't give a shit and wasn't interested.
And we couldn't run a line down the outside of the building because again, the landlord wasn't having any of it and there were zoning issues.
Eventually, the situation was resolved but it took a LOT of bitching on our part and a threat to break the lease.
Now, this is just an example. Remember that New York City is 500 years old, and doesn't invest in its infrastructure as it should. It is also much denser and more crowded than Paris.
Most of the infrastructure is under the streets, and you can't block 'em off to work on it. Also it costs an ENORMOUS amount of money to fix anything down there. You've got to block off the street, rip it up, make sure you don't break anything or blow yourself up by cutting a natural gas line...
The "City that never sleeps" is basically fucked. It needs major updates, but can't actually DO them.
Did you know there are still water pipes down there made of WOOD? Literally, carved out of a tree, like telephone poles with holes in 'em! And clay? My brother in law works for Con Ed, you should HEAR some of the stuff he's told me... Like the utility tunnel whose walls were moving, and when he shined his light on them, millions of cockroaches and rats took off down the tunnel... Literally MILLIONS. Like a living carpet.
UGH UGH UGH. I'm so glad I don't live there anymore. No offense...
I think it's a pretty unique situation.
Re:geh (Score:4, Interesting)
Paris, TN; outside "city" limits:
Beasley Wireless
$40 for 384k down, 128k up (except during daylight hours, when you are lucky to get any connection at all)
AT&T
$23 for single channel ISDN (64k), $40 / mo. line charges. (128k ISDN unavailable)
Various
$23 for 33.6k (on a good day) dial-up
Must be nice to not be limited by the above choices.
Re:geh (Score:2, Interesting)
~15$ for 8mbps!